


Announcements and Doubts

by MeredithBrody



Series: Pretty Little Distance [5]
Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: Gen, alex is still dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 13:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13975725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: Yet another oneshot in the ongoing "Pretty Little Distance" series. This one is just some happy Tom and Judith bonding.





	Announcements and Doubts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PinkAngel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkAngel/gifts), [Fibi94](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fibi94/gifts), [Hideous_Sun_Demon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hideous_Sun_Demon/gifts).



> Yet another oneshot in the ongoing "Pretty Little Distance" series. This one is just some happy Tom and Judith bonding.

**June 10 th** **2018**

Tom had been spending the day dealing with things in his office, though like most of the White House he had tuned in to watch the announcement that Kendra Daynes gave to the world. Knowing how much his lawyer hated to talk to the press outside of cases Tom had been proud to see that she’d allowed Seth to craft her statement. He knew that only Judith and the senior staff hadn’t found out through the press statement, Kendra had wanted to keep it low key. Tom could remember telling his family and friends about Leo, and how terrifying it had been when they first told everyone. He was still a million miles away when a voice at the door distracted him from his thoughts. “Is this a bad time?”

“Judith, what a pleasant surprise.” He hadn’t known that Kendra’s mother was here, or even that she was in the city, but he was glad to see her. In the months since Alex’s death he had come to depend on Judith Daynes as a source of both advice and comfort. She didn’t tiptoe around him like so many others, and often that was what made Tom feel better.

“Tom.” She replied, and there was the other thing that Tom liked. She didn’t stand on ceremony around him. That was the thing that he missed most about having Alex around, and having someone, anyone really, that wasn’t going to always bow to his position was a relief. “I was here for Kendra’s announcement. I thought I’d come by and see you.” Of course she’d have been her for moral support for her daughter.

“I’m glad that you did.” He smiled and dropped everything to his desk. Tom had actually been meaning to talk to Judith for a week or so, but that could wait until they had discussed the news that had made him happier than he could have imagined. “So, you’re going to be a nana?” That had been how Kendra had phrased it earlier and the mental image of anything calling Judith ‘nana’ was entertaining.

“Most of the time I feel too young to be a nana.” Judith laughed, transferring herself from her wheelchair to one of the sofas in his office. Tom decided to take that as an invitation and stepped around to shut the door before going to sit beside Judith on the sofa. “Kendra’s so happy about this, though. She’s always wanted to have a family of her own.”

“So it seems. She and Seth make a good pair.” Tom had been so jealous of them a few months earlier. They had had everything ahead of them and his bitterness had prevented him from seeing that they had both deserved that happiness. Now he was just thankful they had gotten through everything together and made this giant leap in both their lives.

“They do, very much so. Having Lyor around to help them will be a bonus too.” Tom knew that Lyor spent most of his time with them both at work and outside of it. He was always happy to see how good friends they’d become through working together so closely. A comfortable silence stretched between them, giving Tom a few moments to think. There was so many things changing now, and he was sure that Alex would have approved of all of them. “How are you doing Tom?”

Why was it always the simple questions that were the hardest to answer. With only two weeks to go before it hit six months since losing Alex he still didn’t really know what he was doing. “I’m… I’m doing.” There, that was an answer, wasn’t it? Out of everyone he knew, Judith was the one person who might understand why he was struggling so much. “Is this how you felt at the beginning of January?”

“What?” She asked, clearly not following his line of thinking. Not exactly surprising, Tom realised, given that he hadn’t actually given her any context. Tom’s mind was just spinning, and every time he thought he was getting a handle on things, something happened that made it all seem so much harder. Even just something as simple as the colleges that Leo was accepted into. Without Alex it all seemed to be harder to live through and this anniversary was one that he would have rather avoided thinking about at all.

“The looming spectacle of the six month anniversary hanging over you?” He tried to phrase it as a partial joke, something that she could laugh off or take seriously, whichever way felt like it was best for her. Tom didn’t know which way he would have fallen if this discussion had been going the opposite way.

“I didn’t have time to think about it, really.” Judith replied after considering it for a time. Tom tilted his head at that, wondering why she hadn’t. “My daughter was having a mild emotional breakdown at the time.” The tone she said it in made him realise that he really should have known that that was part of what had prevented her from thinking about much.

“She’s bounced back wonderfully.” Tom thought that Kendra was a safer topic of conversation for them. She was alive, she was clearly thriving, and Tom couldn’t make up for the part that he’d played in her problems at the start of the year, he could appreciate how well Kendra had returned. Much like her mother, Kendra rarely put up with his shit when he was being stubborn.

“I think the weekly therapy helps.” Judith said plainly, and Tom was unsurprised to know that Kendra was also still seeing someone every week. He had desperately needed it, and she had too. “You finally speaking to her like she’s a person again helps too. She looks up to you, I think she wants to make you proud.” That was both wonderful to hear and slightly guilt-inducing all at once.

“Honestly I think a lot of my staff feel like that.” He admitted quietly. He had always been a little humbled by how well his staff thought of him, and how they always liked to try and do the best for him. Though recently he’d noticed that they hadn’t been as worried about that, or maybe he’d just been too hard on them all. “Or they used to, at least.”

“It hasn’t changed as much as you think, Tom.” Judith reassured him and while Tom desperately wanted to believe her he couldn’t. There was so much that he knew had changed and the fact that Judith was the one here telling him all this was just one of the things that reminded him. She was the only person other than his children who still treated him like a man, not just the office.

“You know, you’re the only person who uses my name.” It was a simple comment, just something that he’d realised and decided that he quite liked. There was a belief that you should always show respect to the President, but truthfully Tom liked that Judith didn’t play to those rules.

“I’m older than you and while I respect you, I think you need me to kick your ass more than you need someone else to bow down to you.” Once again there was no holds barred and Tom found it so wonderfully refreshing. Worse than that though was the fact that he couldn’t argue with her about that being what he needed. It had been the role that Alex had played in his life for the last year, and he was glad that someone had stepped in to fill that role.

He also loved that he always knew where he stood with her. It made dealing with her so much easier. “Oh please, Judith… Tell me how you really feel.” He joked, it felt nice to laugh, it felt nice not to be thinking about what the public were going to be expecting of him. He was very aware that his public imagine needed to remain the grieving husband carrying on, that he wouldn’t be able to shake that persona for a few months yet, but he could live with it as long as he felt like he had someone who understood.

“If I wanted to do that you’d be crying in the corner.” She said, and having seen Kendra in action he could actually entirely believe that. He was sure that Kendra’s sharp tongue had had to come from somewhere, and it was most likely to have been from her mother. “Kendra told me that you had picked up a lot the last few weeks.” She changed the subject masterfully, and Tom didn’t even really notice at first.

“It’s getting easier to deal with now that I’ve gone through everything at least once.” Here was another opening, something that he wanted to talk about and get the opinion of another parent. He loved his staff, but the lack of parents in his life was making some of this more difficult. “Leo still barely speaks to me, but I’m no longer sure if that is because of Alex or because he’s eighteen.”

“Probably him being eighteen. Kendra was the same at that age, without the dead parent part.” Tom felt a little better knowing that it possibly wasn’t all the fact that he’d lost his mother a few months earlier. Maybe he wasn’t just entirely mad at Tom about it all, though he knew there was a good amount of blame there.

“I think at that age MS could be almost as devastating.” Tom suddenly remembered that Judith had had it almost Kendra’s entire life, and as a teenager that couldn’t have been easy to deal with. Especially not when you were a teenager in the late 90s and had everything else going on there to deal with.

“You’re not wrong about that.” She chuckled then squeezed his hand again tightly, reassuring him and reminding him that everything was alright, and he hoped she was trying to tell him that she’d be with him too. “Leo will come around, Tom. You gotta let him be angry and then he’ll recover and he’ll come back.”

The only part of this that Tom didn’t like was the thought that Leo would be trying to do this all on his own. Tom didn’t want that and he didn’t want to think about the fact that he might not be reaching out to anyone because he was too angry at the universe. He didn’t want to think about Leo doing all of this on his own. “You’ll be there if he needs someone?”

“Sure, if I’m who he wants.” Judith nodded, though Tom could sense the ‘but’ coming in her thoughts. Judith never let him get away with anything, nothing that would have any kind of effect or change what was happening around him in a way that he maybe hadn’t entirely thought through… like sending someone to work out how his son was feeling. That would be one of those things she was so good at stopping. “Let him pick who he goes too.”

“I’ll try. It’s hard to let go, isn’t it? Let them have their own lives that you’re not really part of.” Tom knew that this was all part of that, and that that was part of being a parent. He didn’t have a choice about Leo’s whole life and he hated that he wasn’t going to be able to keep managing him. That he was going to grow up and become a man of his own with a life that Tom only played a walk-on role in.

“You’re saying that to the woman who was here to watch her daughter announce her pregnancy to the world today.” She pointed out quietly, and that did succeed in making Tom realise that he still has many more things to live through with his children. “Letting go is the hardest part of being a parent, but it’s worth it when I look at where Kennie is now.” Judith got a happy, wistful look on her face and Tom realised that he loved watching her talk about Kendra. She was always so proud of her daughter, it was touching. “I see her as the little girl who was always running around getting filthy…”

“Now she’s working in the White House.” Tom finished for her, understanding how that could be something that would change your view of a childhood, but also be proud as punch about the adult that that chubby thing you chased around a muddy garden in the summer had grown into.

“Exactly.” Judith’s grin remained, and she was clearly absolutely certain that nothing was going to happen that hadn’t already happened to them. “Wait and see, Tom. Leo may surprise you. He’s still young and dumb and not sure what he wants out of his life. In a few years he could have changed the world.”

“I feel terrible for pulling your attention to this on a happy day.” He had to admit that he should have picked a better time to have this mild breakdown, rather than drag Judith’s attention away from her daughter and her grandchild. Obviously, though, Judith didn’t think that way at all.

“Oh please, I’d rather think about this than about the fact that Kennie is having a baby. I knew this day would come but I still want to live in denial.” Tom was a touch surprised by that, especially given that Kendra had always wanted children from his understanding. Obviously his quizzical look gave him away. “Wait until it’s Penny, then you’ll understand.”

“That can wait a long time. A very long time.” He laughed, then decided that maybe it was time that he go and publicly congratulate the happy couple. It was nice to have gotten away from everything for a little while, but now it was time he focus again. Though if the truth was heard, he’d rather just have stayed listening to Judith talk.


End file.
